Ain't no mountain high enough for voice of Tour

Yeah, yeah, Michael Schumacher won his fifth Formula One title. And Ernie Els picked up his first Claret Jug. So what? The real sporting triumph last weekend wasn't at Magny-Cours or Muirfield, it was 50 miles north of Marseilles at the summit of Mont Ventoux.

Sunday's stage of the Tour de France ended with a 5,000 feet climb up the baking, treeless slopes of this extinct volcano. In the lead was Richard Virenque. He was shattered, desperately hanging on while Lance Armstrong chased after him.

Less than a mile from the summit, the mood shifted from superhuman to surreal. Eurosport's commentator, David Duffield, started reading the 121st Psalm.

It was a classic Duffield moment. You see, the Tour is not only the supreme test of endurance in sport, it is also the supreme test of endurance in sports commentary. Forget Peter Alliss chuntering on for four days of The Open. Forget Aggers and Blowers divvying up a Test match into little 20-minute chunks. Duffield talks non-stop, six hours a day, for three solid weeks.

I discovered him a few years ago, while flicking through the satellite channels. On screen a bunch of drug-fuelled loonies in primary-coloured Lycra were wheeling through the French countryside. Over the top came this disembodied voice, reeling off facts, figures, anecdotes and speculations in an amazing, free-associating stream of consciousness. I was hooked.

Last week, by way of an experiment, I switched on the telly at random intervals and noted down whatever Duffield was saying.

The very first phrase I caught was, "semi-soft cheese from the Pyrenees." Duffield was describing the produce of a village through which the riders were passing. He then described the weather on the day in 1974 when they had last passed that way, moving swiftly on to a story about a plaque on the wall of a local blacksmith's that commemorated repairs carried out to a bike in 1913. Another time I dropped in, he was discussing long-term financial planning with his commentating partner, Irish ex-cyclist Sean Kelly.

"If you retire at 30 and live till you're 70 or 80, the money can depreciate, so you've got to have it properly invested," Duffield opined, as the cyclists zoomed round a twisting mountain road. "I've seen some cyclists blow their money on flash cars that depreciate by £5,000 the moment they leave the showroom."

Kelly seemed to think the problem was wives who go mad in "modern boutiques". But I could be mistaken. Kelly has an Irish accent as impenetrably thick as a gallon of Guinness.

Hour after glorious hour, Duffield and Kelly conduct a dialogue worthy of Samuel Beckett. Sometimes, the strain proves too much. At 2.20pm on Friday, Duffield interrupted an analysis of the number of Coca-Cola bottles consumed by the cyclists during the Tour to gasp: "I'm not making excuses, but we've been on air, rabbiting on since 10.00am UK time."

A day later he began a sentence with the words: "Regular viewers, and we've got three of them, all related to me . . . "

Duffield is commentary's King of the Mountains. He's been covering cycling forever. He knew Tommy Simpson, the British cyclist who died in 1967 just a mile from the summit of Mont Ventoux.

So, when the race passed the spot where Simpson died, Duffield started reading the psalm that was sung at Simpson's memorial service. His voice choking with emotion, Lord Duff of the Microphone carried on through to the final words: "The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and for evermore."

Then he went back to the race. What utter, utter genius.

Houllier's obsession

Gerard Houllier is to midfielders what Imelda Marcos was to shoes. He can't walk past a football club without buying another one.

This summer, his midfield cupboard was down to the bare bones of Steven Gerrard, Danny Murphy, Nicky Barmby, Dietmar Hamann, Vladimir Smicer, Patrik Berger, John Arne Riise, Bernard Diomede and Igor Biscan. So Houllier snapped up Bruno Cheyrou, Salif Diao and Alou Diarra. But still had a nagging need for more. Like you do.

First he spent weeks pursuing that splendid role-model for modern youth Lee Bowyer. Now he's after Damien Duff.

At least Duff could provide the width that Liverpool have obviously lacked over the past few years, but even so, why is Houllier so midfield-addicted?

Will Liverpool be playing a 1-8-1 formation during the coming season?

Or does Houllier have serious doubts about the long-term future of certain Liverpool stars?

Specifically, does he wonder whether Gerrard will ever be fully fit? At 22, Gerrard should be able to run all year. Instead, he makes Darren Anderton look ever-present. I fear Gerrard may never fulfil his obvious potential. Does Houllier by any chance agree with me?

Bob's mission impossible

Last night's
On the Line radio show investigated the failure of Halifax to complete the rebuilding of their Shay stadium.

I spent a few days in Halifax last season, reporting on the club's desperate attempts to stay in the Football League and in business. The chairman, Bob Walker, struck me as a decent bloke, trying to do his best in impossible circumstances but the people of Halifax had swapped The Shay for the garden centre.

I think of Bob whenever I hear someone go on about how clubs are the hearts of their communities. Bob knew that the truth was very different. A few die-hards may linger on, but communities as a whole don't care. That's why Barry Hearn can't fill Leyton Orient. That's why Wimbledon are off to Milton Keynes, en route to oblivion. That's why the Football League faces decimation.

Last year, League clubs lost £138million and that was before the collapse of ITV Digital. In America, the National Football League has 32 teams in a nation with 270m people. In England we try to maintain 92 clubs. As they say in the US: "Go figure."

Gold for Chick on the Stick

I've tried to give a monkey's about the Commonwealth Games, but somehow I just can't.

Still, Manchester's big show does raise a couple of matters of sporting debate.

First: why are they having the shooting at Bisley, in Surrey, when the most exciting example of live gunplay in Europe takes place every night, just down the road in Moss Side?

And second: when did female Russian athletes become the world's great sporting sex symbols? The Commonwealth's most hyped-up live attraction is Australia's Tatiana Grigorieva, the Russian-born pole-vaulter known as The Chick on the Stick.

Now, for decades we in the West believed that your average Soviet sportswoman shaved her chin twice a day and her armpits never. But ever since the fall of communism, the former USSR has been turning out scores of gorgeous sports babes, of whom Anna Kournikova and Grigorieva are just the two most obvious examples.

What provoked this astonishing turnaround? Is this what the Soviets would have looked like all along, if they hadn't been stuffed full of sexchanging drugs by evil Commie sports-scientists?

Is it simply a natural feminine reaction to decades of grey, Stalinist oppression? Or can a few years Down Under make any woman sexy?

This is a sociological question of great significance that demands further intensive examination. And I think I know just the man for the job.